An Inevitable Fate
by Jaclyn840
Summary: The inevitable outcome when two Careers from the same District reach the final two. Unnamed Hunger Games.


**Written for the Caesar's Palace Nova Challenge Prompt: Classicism. Unnamed Hunger Games. Translations are at the bottom of the page :)  
**

* * *

They find the last Tribute in a temple: a girl from District 8 who had hidden for three weeks.

"I never really did stand a chance did I?" she whispers, her emaciated face trembling with fear.

The Career Siblings from District 2 look at her frail body, cowering behind an altar to Artemis, and shake their heads.

Behind the altar stands a majestic statue of the goddess; her pale gaze and outstretched arm emanating a foreboding presence in the temple's silence. Inscribed upon the wall in gold are the words:

Άρτεμις, θεά του φωτός και προστάτης του Ευπαθείς (1)

The boy lays out some Nightlock in Artemis's upturned palm, knowing that unlike them, she didn't choose to come here. The easy, painless way out is the best they can offer her.

"We'll be waiting outside."

The immense marble archway provides a cooling shelter from the heat of the Arena: a recreation of an ancient Greek City-state. They sit on the steps, waiting in silence for the inevitable moment. It's been a long week, and despite being well-fed, the toil of killing and the unforgiving sun had taken its toll on the twins.

"You think she's going to eat it?" he asks, keeping his eyes down and scraping away at the marble paving stones with his sword.

"She has to; it's either that or getting hacked to bits. Everyone needs some time to reflect on their lives before giving it up."

"Did you do that when you volunteered?"

The girl rests her chin on the pommel of her sword and thinks. Even though it's only been three months, the Reaping seems like a lifetime away.

"I thought about our parents – what they would say if they were still alive and saw us volunteering together."

The boy muses on his sister's reflection in the glint of his sword. She looks so much like him: the same wavy brown hair and vacant amber eyes that speak of a childhood snatched away by the Games. He closes his eyes and imagines killing her, whether she would have the cold determination in her eyes when she used to struggle against his weight during wrestling class. He opens his eyes to the sight of her looking back at him, and realises that killing her would simply be killing himself.

"I'd imagine they'd be pretty ticked off. Dad would give me a belting at the farewell for sure," he sighs, "God knows what Mum would do to you."

"She'd probably cry. Beneath her ferocious voice, she's actually a bit of a softie, especially when it's about us."

"Do you ever miss them?"

"Not the beatings for sure," she chuckles.

Meanwhile, the Capitol holds its breath, anticipating the Cannon and the siblings to tear into each other. The boy looks over his shoulders at the iron bar they've laid across the temple's doors, hoping for another one of those giant three-headed dog mutts to smash through and end her life; so he wouldn't have to.

"So, what're you going to do when all this is over?" she asks.

"Don't count yourself out yet," he says with a smirk, "for all you know, the audience could be betting on you right now."

"Pfft, don't kid yourself. Everyone knows you're way stronger than me."

He hesitates to reply, continuing to scratch away at the marble.

"You were always Mum and Dad's favourite."

"Don't even start," she scowls and jabs him in the shoulder, "that's bullshit and you know it."

"Look, I couldn't be pissed caring anymore."

"But I do. I care because you shouldn't give a rat's ass what they thought. We got so wound up trying to prove we were such flawless children; we forgot they were even more fucked up than either of us."

"You're not fucked up," he whispers, with the words _beautiful _and_ precious _barely hanging from his lips_. _

"We're both fucked up for volunteering in the first place."

"Maybe we wanted to prove something to them, to their memory. I wouldn't have, if I knew how fucked up this was going to get. A lot of shit changes in three weeks."

_"I wouldn't have too, if I knew it would come down to the both of us," _she thinks, looking in her brother's eyes and wondering if he feels the same way.

The silence between them confirms her thoughts.

"She's taking an awfully long time," he says, "maybe we should-"

_Boom. _

The blast of the Cannon sends a flock of crows fluttering from the temple's roof; its echo followed by the scrape of two swords being sheathed. In the distance, the sun begins to set over the Parthenon, painting its white marble blood-red; a reminder of the one common blood left flowing in the Arena. On the temple steps, the two warrior children sit in silence, neither willing to speak about the inevitable act they must now face.

"So, where do you want to end this?" she asks, her lips trembling with the gravity of each word.

"There's an open-air theater down the road."

"Great, looks like there'll be a theatrical finale after all," she chuckles.

He helps his sister up and they drag their sandal-clad feet to the Theater of Dionysus, keeping their heads down the entire journey. The crows circle over the Siblings, waiting for dinner to be served. By the time they've reached the entrance, the moon has perched itself high in the sky, casting an eerie glow on the paving stones.

Flanking the theater's entrance stands two life-sized statues of Athena and Ares. Ares; clad in leather armour and a bronze helmet, wields a ten-foot long spear and extends his shield towards the boy, beckoning him to test fortune's fate. Athena; with her robes shifting about in the night breeze, stands with both shield and spear held in outstretched arms, a reminder of the girl's destiny as a warrior.

"That's weird," he says, "I didn't notice them the last time we came here."

"I think the Gamemakers put it here for us," she replies, gazing upon Athena's form, and noticing how her armour is slightly smaller than Ares'.

The siblings help each other put on pieces of the armour, giggling as they strain to fit the clasps.

"Is the shield too heavy?" he asks, watching her arms flex as she lifts the massive dish from Athena's hands, "I can do without mine."

"It's not too bad. I'm just glad we're doing this at night, it'd be a bitch wearing this much in the sun."

They sit on the marble steps with helmets and weapons by their feet, waiting for the Anthem and the image of the girl from 8 to flash in the night sky and confirm their fate. When it does, torches on all sides of the theater light up in a burning crescendo that illuminates the stage, further cementing the Audience's expectations of a theatrical finale.

"You know," she sighs, "in a twisted sort of way, I'm glad it's you and no one else."

"I wouldn't have wanted anybody else," he says, pulling her head close to his chest and running his fingers along her braided hair. He thinks he can feel her lips shudder, but it's hard to tell with the armour in the way.

As she embraces him one last time in the center of the stage, he considers dropping his shield at the last moment and letting her run him through. But the first clash of her spear against his awakens his gladiatorial instincts, and they begin the epic finale long awaited by the Capitol.

Unbeknownst to the audience, the siblings are matched evenly. After years of sparring with one another, they know each others stroke and parry better than their own. The boy's superior strength and water-tight defenses are cancelled out equally by his sister's lightning-fast speed and relentless attacks. After an hour of skilled spear thrusts and counter-attacks, fatigue sets into them and the fight degenerates into a clumsy brawl; each sibling struggling to keep a grip on their heavy shields and maintain sight of the other through sweat-clouded eyes.

If it wasn't for the slight difference in height, no one could've been able to tell apart the two; so identically armoured and skilled they were.

It takes another hour for the first spear to be broken; a desperate jab by the girl falling low of his knee and crushed beneath the weight of her brother's shield. She draws her sword and slashes away at his helmet, barely cut off by the edge of his shield. A mistimed thrust by the boy is blocked against her shield, and she hacks apart his spear with a smirk on her sweat-stained lips.

"Good one," the boy pants, dropping the broken spear and drawing his sword, "I knew you wouldn't let me get away with that."

"I don't let you get away with anything," she huffs, peering at his blurry figure through her helmet, "thought you would've figured that out by now."

"How about _this,"_ he grunts, kicking her hard in the shield. The girl staggers backwards and nearly loses her balance, before unleashing a yell and battering him with a barrage of sword-strikes.

Beneath the bottom of his shield, he sees a portion of her leg exposed from where she had slackened with her shield-grip. The boy hesitates for a second before slashing out at her thigh. The sight of blood gushing from her artery sends a spurt of pain stabbing through his heart – as though he was the one being cut. She drops her shield with a clang and cries out as she falls over. The blood pools around her leg, staining the marble floor a grotesque shade of crimson.

He drops his shield and kneels next to her, frantically trying to stop the blood pouring out of her wound.

"Are you ok? I didn't mean to-"

Another blood-curdling cry pierces through the theater as the girl buries a broken spearhead deep into his side. It's a grievous wound, but nowhere near as mortal as the one he's given to her.

"Told you I won't let you get away with anything," she whispers, the strength ebbing from her voice.

They remove each other's helmets and embrace, trembling from the pain they've dealt to one another.

"I g-guess it's over f-for me now," she stutters, running her quivering fingers down his cheek and wiping away his tears.

"You always give up before it's over," he says, placing a kiss on her forehead so she can't see his other hand, "how are you going to explain it to our parents when they see you and not me?"

"I would've told t-them, that I died p-protecting you. And I did it gladly," she says, smiling in her last moments.

"My dear sister, I'm sorry I had to hurt you so badly, since you would've stopped me otherwise. But I won't let you take that honour away from me," he says, before stuffing Nightlock into his mouth and swallowing.

"What? No you-" she gasps, but the life in his eyes has already gone, last fixed upon a larger-than-life statue of Leonidas towering over the rear of the theater. Inscribed beneath the warrior-king's feet are the words:

Ὦ ξεῖν', ἀγγέλλειν Λακεδαιμονίοις ὅτι τῇδε κείμεθα, τοῖς κείνων ῥήμασι πειθόμενοι (2)

The girl's screams of anguish echo throughout the Arena, only to be cut off by the blast of the Cannon, and the blaring of trumpets in the distance.

* * *

1: Artemis, Goddess of Light and Protector of the Vulnerable

2: Go tell the Spartans, stranger passing by, that here, obedient to Spartan law, we lie.


End file.
